Business make over: TV cameras roll at Fisherman's Wharf business

In a dusty, picked-over former gift shop on Old Fisherman's Wharf, the Delecces tell their tale.

Moving from Hawaii in the late 1990s with four children, they made a life for themselves after Joe Delecce happened upon an empty wharf store.

"We just fell into it," Mary Delecce, Joe's wife, told a TV host early Tuesday as two cameras capture the scene.

Their three jewelry stores — Monterey Bay Silver Co., Splash and Morning Star Pearls — will be made over, at no cost to the Delecces, on the MSNBC show, "Your Business."

Although it won't air on the cable station until May 18, visitors to the wharf will likely see change to the stores by late Wednesday when filming ends.

Cameramen, an anxious producer and host J.J. Ramberg were busy popping in and out of the three stores as the sun came up Tuesday.

"It seems like a lot of businesses are doing OK on this wharf," producer Frank Silverstein said as a whale-watching ship boarded. "That's because there are a huge number of tourists and a lot of people that are interested in having a good time."

One of Delecces' sons wrote to the show not because the businesses were losing money, but because his parents had not saved enough for retirement.

In the next two days, a team of experts assembled for "Your Business" will attempt to make the stores more profitable to increase a retirement nest egg.

Joe Delecce, 65, was visiting a friend on the wharf in 1998 when he spotted the location that would become Monterey Bay Silver Co. and soon signed a lease.

The next year he expanded by leasing an adjacent store, which became Morning Star Pearls. In 2005, he opened Splash, a fashion jewelry store, two doors down in the same building.

The three stores employ nine people.

In December, Joe Delecce got the lease for other the store next to Monterey Bay Silver Co., giving him the whole bottom floor of the building which houses the Bruce Ariss Wharf Theater.

He increased from 1,200 square feet at the three stores to about 2,700 square feet after the addition.

Chris Myers, CEO of Denver-based Internet software company BodeTree, said he would like to see if the separate businesses could be integrated more so as to not waste resources.

Myers and four other out-of-town experts were flown in to rework how the Delecces manage their business and make structural changes — although details were sparse.